


Reckless

by onceandfuturekiki



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 02:08:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7556029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceandfuturekiki/pseuds/onceandfuturekiki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vex isn't afraid to die. Keyleth has a problem with that. Kind of Vaxleth, even though Vax doesn't appear. This was written and takes place after A Name is Earned. A very rough version was posted to Tumblr months ago, but this is a far more polished version.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reckless

It was nice to have a house wherever they went, Vex thought as she walked through the hallways of Scanlan’s mansion. Greyskull Keep was always there, in the back of her mind, and though she missed the first home she had known in ages, sometimes so much her heart ached, having this place, something that they could return to at the end of the day, no matter where they were… it took the sting out of the ache, at least a little bit. It may have had a feeling of intangibility to it, but the rooms and halls were becoming familiar in a way that she found comforting.

The day had been  _exhausting_. Usually a fight was bad enough, but fighting while trying to solve a riddle was a whole other level of pain-in-the-ass.

The image of Pike, with that creepy fucking sword lodged in her stomach flashed into Vex’s mind, and she remembered what it felt like to pull it out of her, the wet sound it made when it finally dislodged, the way the blood had started to gush out of the wound. Pure terror had curled in her stomach, in a way that hadn’t happened since she had died, since she had been brought back and found that now there was very little that frightened her.

She tried to shake the image out of her head. They were all fine now. Well, mostly. Pike was healing, so she couldn’t restore everyone who had been hit with magic aging at once. Keyleth had taken the least of it, so she went first, since she’d be the easiest to do. Grog, Scanlan, and Vax would have to wait, at least until the next day. And then they’d figure out what to do next.

Tonight, though, they’d rest.

Vex thought about looking for her brother, but she figured he’d probably already turned in for the evening.  _The old man needs his rest_ , she thought, giggling to herself as she turned into the study, thinking about the gray in his hair and the wrinkles that had appeared on his face.

It was in the study that she found Keyleth, sitting on the couch, her spine straight and rigid, and her hair hiding her face.

Hmmm.

She’d been trying to get  _something_  out of Vax about where he and Keyleth currently stood, especially with Vax’s certain… developments of late. Things seemed to be going well between them before everything happened, but now there was a palpable tension to their connection. Getting Vax to talk had been pretty much impossible. Keyleth, though… Vex had noticed that if she got her friend flustered and nervous enough she usually ended up letting some things slip.

“Nice to be young again, isn’t it?” she said, practically skipping into the room.

Keyleth glanced up, her brow furrowed, and her face settling somewhere between confused and angry. “What?”

“The boys have to deal with being old for at least another night,” she laughed, stopping beside the couch. “Vax is so old…” she continued chuckling, barely noticing that Keyleth had returned her gaze to her lap, her hair once again creating a curtain that hid her face.

It took another moment for Vex to realize that the other woman was not laughing. “What’s wrong?” she asked, coming another step closer to Keyleth.

“You almost died today. Again.” She was so quiet, so still. Vex wasn’t sure what to do. Keyleth had never exactly been stoic. Usually when she was upset she was bit more demonstrative. She at least  _cried_. But she was just sitting there, her eyes on her hands, which were folded together in her lap, her face expressionless.

Honestly, the thought had barely occurred to Vex. She knew that she’d been knocked out in the fight, and she was aware that she very well could have died. But she’d already died once. It no longer held the fear it once did.

“I told you Keyleth,” she said, trying to keep her voice light in an attempt to diffuse whatever situation was happening. “I’m not afraid to die.”

“Well, how lovely for you,” Keyleth spat out, her words carrying venom. “What a lovely, selfish approach to death you’ve decided to take.”

“ _Selfish_?!” Vex exclaimed, offended.

“You might not be afraid to die anymore, but there are a lot of people who are terrified of losing you.”

“Keyleth,” Vex said carefully, reaching for her friend’s shoulder. “That’s very sweet-“

“I’m not talking about me,” Keyleth cut her off, jerking her shoulder out of reach. “Yes, I would be devastated if you died. We all would. We all  _were_. But I’m talking about Vax.”

“I know that he would be upset, but Vax understands-“

“No. He doesn’t.” Keyleth finally raised her eyes to look at Vex, and for the first time Vex could see the fire in the other woman’s eyes, the anger that was mirrored in her voice. “You didn’t see him at the tomb. You weren’t there. You were  _dead_. You didn’t see what that did to him. You have no idea.”

The idea that maybe Keyleth had seen something in her brother that she hadn’t set something boiling inside of Vex. How dare someone presume to know Vax better than she did? The idea made her furious, and the instinct to fight back _hard_ started to stir inside of her.

“You were so…  _mean_  about me and Vax, thinking that I was going to hurt him. You were cold and you were threatening. Every time you were around me. You thought I was going to break his heart. You still think that. You don’t even realize that you could hurt him far more than I ever could,” Keyleth’s eyes bore into Vex, more intense than Vex had ever seen them outside of battle, and her anger started to morph, just the slightest bit, into fear. The look that the druid had in her eyes at that moment was usually followed by a firestorm, or someone getting turned into a small animal. Without realizing it, Vex took a step back, wanting very much to put more space between herself and Keyleth.

“You might not be afraid of dying anymore, Vex.” Keyleth stood then, walking forward, closing the space between them. “But Vax is very,  _very_  scared of losing you. What happened in that tomb… I have never seen him like that. It was the worst thing I have ever seen him experience. I don’t ever want to see him like that again.”

Vex wasn’t used to having Keyleth’s wrath aimed at her. She was used to the goofy, awkward, clumsy druid who blushed when they teased her and stumbled over her words when she got nervous. Now, though, she stood tall, her gaze even, her voice low. Vex found herself feeling very small the closer she came, anxious in a way she had never associated with her druid friend.

“Things might be complicated with Vax and me,” she said, stopping in front of Vex. “But he’s given me his heart. I take that very seriously, Vex. He trusted me with it, and I will do anything I have to in order to protect it.”

Trying to project something other than fear and anxiety, Vex set her jaw and drew herself up to her full height, looking Keyleth in the eye. “Are you threatening me?”

“All I’m saying is that if you ever put Vax through something like that again, you’ll see how fun I am to be around,” Keyleth say, her voice lower and more serious than Vex had ever heard it.

Vex found herself frozen to the spot by Keyleth’s gaze. She wanted to do something to assert some kind of dominance in the situation, to show that she didn’t feel threatened.

All she managed to do, though, was nod. After a long moment, Keyleth nodded back, then walked away, her shoulder brushing against Vex’s.

The silence of the room surrounded Vex as she stood there, confused and astonished. _What the fuck was that_?


End file.
